Absolution
by WillieHewes
Summary: Melchiah wondered through the deserted hallways. He knew his troubled mind would not allow him to sleep now, and so he followed his feet to his brother's door, inexorably drawn there by thoughts he did not wish to acknowledge.


ABSOLUTION   
  
Melchiah wondered through the deserted hallways in his breeches and undershirt. He knew his troubled mind would not allow him to sleep now, and so he followed his feet to his brother's door, inexorably drawn there by thoughts he did not wish to acknowledge. He knocked softly, almost hoping he would not be heard, but Raziel's voice rang out clear and crisp.   
  
"Yes?"   
  
He entered the room. Raziel was still fully dressed, arranging his armour on a stand in the corner.   
  
"Melchiah, still up? I thought you complained of weariness?" he asked with a good-natured smile.   
  
Melchiah sighed. "Sleep eludes me tonight, Raziel. As it has done these past few nights." He barely dared to look at his brother. Being in his presence, alone with him in his room, seemed to stir up all the thoughts and emotions he had tried so carefully to stifle.   
  
"Something troubles you, my brother," Raziel said with a slightly worried look on his face. "What is it?"   
  
"Do you remember..." Melchiah started, then fell silent. How could he ever tell him? "You..." Tears burned in his throat. He could contain this secret no longer. "Raziel?" he asked in a ragged whisper, "Will you hear my confession?"   
  
Raziel was surpised. Certainly, he was a priest, like his brethren, and they sometimes took confession from their soldiers, but never from their fellow priests. "Would you not rather father Andres do it?" he asked doubtfully.   
  
"He is already asleep, I would not wake an old man for this," Melchiah said, avoiding his eyes. "Besides -- no, I had rather you hear me."   
  
"Very well," Raziel decided, "let us go to the chapel."   
  
Melchiah nodded and followed him through the deserted hallways into the spacious, round chamber that served as their private chapel. The centre of the room had a tail-eating snake in raised relief on the smooth stone floor. It was a holy symbol, reminding them that life eternally consumed itself to be renewed. Raziel stood in the centre, and whispered a brief prayer under his breath as Melchiah knelt before him, his head bowed.   
  
"Bless me," he hesitated, but tradition was stronger than their familiarity, "Father, for I have sinned."   
  
"Yes, my son?" Raziel's voice sounded from above.   
  
Melchiah addressed Raziel's soft, indoor boots, his head still bowed, kneeling down on the cold stone floor. Haltingly, he began to tell his tale: how he had been lured away from the troops by a vampire to an old, dilapidated church along the road. He had followed the fiend inside, overconfident perhaps, but burning with the desire to impale him and stake him out for the sun. In the echoing darkness of that church, the vampire spoke to him from the shadows. He never saw him, the voice seemed to originate from everywhere at once, and thus he was forced to listen.   
  
"The things he said, father -- I cannot forget them. His words haunt me in the depths of night, it is as if he has put a curse on me."   
  
"What did he say to you?" Raziel asked.   
  
"Obscenities..." Melchiah said softly, and then, more forcefully, "Lies! I -- I cannot escape them..." Even now, in this holy place, the vampire's deep, velvety voice tormented him. He remembered every single word; he heard them over and over again in his mind. _I can see into your heart, Sarafan. I know your mind..._   
  
"He spoke of you," he said. "He described you, as if you were... as if..." his voice faltered.   
  
_I know how you long for him,_ the vampire had whispered from the shadows, _for his hungry eyes, his naked limbs. Skin as soft as a girl's, don't you think?_   
  
"He put a spell on me!"   
  
_I know how much you want him. To feel him beneath you, to cover that whore's mouth with kisses, those moist eyes looking up at you in perfect lust... to_ take _him!_   
  
He grimaced, and brought his hands to his ears to try and block out that contemptable laughter, so soft, so insidious.   
  
_Poor Sarafan, you do not even know the pleasures he could show you... _  
  
"Father..."   
  
_But I do! _  
  
"Raziel..." His voice sounded ragged, chocked with tears.   
  
_Bring him to me, and he shall be yours! _  
  
Melchiah sobbed, the words stuck in his throat but he forced them out, in a hoarse, barely audible whisper. "I harbour strange desires for you, Raziel."   
  
A deathly silence descended in the chapel, so deep that Melchiah could hear the tears dropping onto the floor from his cheeks. He knew he ought not, but he looked up. He had to see Raziel's face, had to know his mind.   
  
Raziel looked at him with a grave expression. A disgusted grimace passed over his face for a moment. "That is indeed a great sin," he said, and Melchiah bowed his head again.   
  
"I have fasted, and prayed to be released of this curse, but to no avail! I do not wish for these feelings but I cannot escape them. My brother, I'm at my wit's end, I feel as if I would burst apart if I did not tell you! I don't know what to do..." He sobbed openly now, and rested his hands on the stone floor.   
  
"Have you also commited the sin of onanism?" Raziel asked coldly. Melchiah nodded, miserable. He felt as though he could die of shame then and there.   
  
"Do you wish for me to flagellate you?" Raziel offered. Again, he nodded. Anything that might work. Raziel put his hand on his head briefly in blessing, and his voice was gentle when he said, "Remain here, I shall be back shortly."   
  
...  
  
Raziel returned with a fearsome-looking knout, the leather thongs cruelly knotted and twisted with wire. The ends were frayed from use. Melchiah looked up at him and noticed a dangerous glint in his eyes, as if the prospect of whipping his brother brought him a strange kind of pleasure. Melchiah had noticed before that Raziel's enthusiasm did not always seem to stem from piety -- not that it mattered. Their enemies were no less dead for it. Yet, although the knout was clearly Raziel's, Melchiah wondered if he'd ever used it on himself at all. _Skin as soft as a girl's..._ the honey-voice coaxed. He turned his head in shame, and took off his shirt to bare his back. This was his confession, he reminded himself, not Raziel's. Raziel picked up a low bench that was pushed against the wall and put it down in front of Melchiah, who was still kneeling in the center.   
  
"Hold on to that," he said softly, "I cannot hold you up and flog you at the same time."   
  
Obediently, Melchiah leaned on the bench with his elbows and gripped the edge tightly.   
  
"I think, fifteen strokes. That will be necessary to absolve you of these foul sins."   
  
Melchiah nodded. Fifteen was rather more than he had counted on, but his confessor would know best. And if it would silence that accursed voice, he would welcome any number of lashes. Raziel put one foot up on the end of the bench, close to Melchiah's face. Melchiah looked at it for a moment, noticed the dust gathered around the soft leather sole. Then he closed his eyes tightly and gritted his teeth for the first stroke.   
  
It came down on his back with full force, and stung cruelly. He cried out despite himself. Raziel was strong, and he would not spare the whip for his brother. He shifted his foot and delivered the second blow with even more force than the first. Melchiah grunted and clenched his jaws tight.   
  
"Two," Raziel muttered, and immediately followed it up with a string of lashes, delivered with speed and precision. He hit the same spot over and over; it was not long before he burst the skin. Melchiah cried out in agony. The pain knocked the air out of him and blinded his mind. Irrationally, he wanted to beg for mercy for a moment, to tell his brother to stop this torture. Then he remembered his sin, and held on. A trickle of blood ran down his side, but Raziel continued without pause.   
  
"My God," Melchiah gasped, and cried out again at the next stroke. "Free me of this sin!" His prayer seemed to invigorate Raziel further, for he wielded the knout with renewed fervour. Melchiah's tortured cries turned into a kind of rattle as he tried to scream from empty lungs. The pain drowned out all thought, all feeling but the pain itself. Raziel held the murderous rhythm for what seemed an eternity, anguish burst through his body with each bloody 'thwack' of the whip. He did not count, could not have, but he felt it must have been far more than fifteen strokes when Raziel finally paused for a moment. Melchiah opened his eyes, but saw nothing.   
  
"God," he rasped, voicelessly. Raziel brought the whip down on his back again, and he called out, loudly and long. Again, Raziel paused. Melchiah lowered his head onto the wooden bench. Another lash, another burst of pain blossomed violently though his torso. "Release me!" he cried, and Raziel answered with a loudly cracking blow which finally forced his chest flat against the wood.   
  
"... fifteen ..." Raziel said, panting, and stepped back from the bench. Melchiah weakly raised his head to look at him. His face was reddened and he was sweating from the exertion. The look in his eyes was unfathomable, and at that moment, Melchiah wanted nothing more than to be taken into his arms, to stroke his fingers through his fine black hair and kiss him deeply. Sobbing, he sank to the floor. Raziel sat down on the bench, the leather straps of his whip trailing on the floor. Thus they remained, wordless, while the moon traced her slow path across the sky.   
  
"Watch here tonight, and pray," Raziel said finally. He got up and returned the bench to its proper place. "And you will be forgiven, my son."   
  
Melchiah drew himself up into a kneeling position and folded his hands. Behind him, Raziel's soft footsteps died away into the silence of the night.   
  
...  
  
_Bring him to me and he shall be yours!_   
  
Neither his fast, nor his prayers, nor Raziel's expertly delivered flogging had delivered him from the endlessly remembered taunts of the vampire. And now they had caught the beast in its defiled den, he, Raziel, and eight of their best soldiers. They sent two pairs of men to guard the other entrances, and warily stepped through the sagged, rotting doors. Melchiah was bearing his polearm; Raziel held Moebius' staff. The soldiers followed them inside with fitfully flickering torches, which cast ghostly shadows throughout the ancient stone church. An eerie laughter rang out from the shadows.   
  
"Oh, this is wonderful..." A melodious voice, so familiar to Melchiah, drifted through the darkness. They advanced slowly, Raziel gestured for the men to remain at the door. Melchiah held his polearm ahead of him as he walked down the isle, looking around carefully.   
  
"You would not believe," it sounded from beside him. His head snapped around, and for a moment, he saw a shadow, flitting across to the other side. It was enough.   
  
"There!" he called, and the mysterious orb on the staff flared brightly for a moment. There was an indecorous slap as the vampire struck the smooth flagstones, mere paces away from Melchiah.   
  
"All too arrogant," he said as he walked over to the groaning bundle of cloth. "You knew we were coming, and yet you remained. Did you believe yourself to be immune to the Lord's power?"   
  
Raziel laughed softly, he was close behind. The light from the orb revealed their catch: an elegant beast, with long black hair and a flowing grey robe.   
  
"Tell me," Melchiah continued, "is it some kind of affliction among your kind that makes you all think you're something special, think that somehow you will be able to escape the coming judgement?"   
  
"Sarafan..." the parasite groaned, writing in pain.   
  
"Quiet, fiend!" Melchiah sneered. "Have the dignity to die in silence."   
  
"Listen," the vampire hissed, "he wants you too!"   
  
Melchiah's face fell, and for a moment there was absolute silence. His eyes met Raziel's, whose dumbfounded expression mirrored his own. Then he swung his polearm around with force and buried the blade in the man's back.   
  
"Silence!" he heard himself roar.   
  
He glanced at Raziel, whose face was now a mask of rage. Raziel drew his sword and hacked at the beast's neck, the discarded staff clattering to the stone floor. Melchiah took it up and stood back as Raziel wrenched the tip of his blade between two vertebrea, spraying blood all over himself. The vampire gurgled, still half-living. With a wordless cry, Raziel wrenched the head from its shoulders and held it high, blood streaming down his arm. He turned back towards the churchdoors. Melchiah took up his polearm and followed him.   
  
"It is done!" Raziel decleared, and the soldiers gave a cheer. "Was he alone here?" he asked, merely turning his head slightly to address Melchiah.   
  
Melchiah looked at the orb. "Yes," he said. His voice sounded weak to his own ears.   
  
"Then let us back to the stronghold."   
  
As they passed the mouldering doors, he caught Raziel's eye, and recieved such a deadly stare that he knew he would forever think better of mentioning this night.   
  
They returned, bearing the head, and as Raziel went to talk to Moebius, Melchiah slipped like a thief into the deserted kitchens in the lower part of the stronghold. It was time he broke his fast. 


End file.
